How to learn inventor?

[Anonymous]

I am a student and know some basics about Inventor. I have a students license. But I have watched many youtube videos to learn Inventor. They show me how to do stuff but I have no idea what those kind of stuff do. I am only 14 but that doesnt stop me from wanting to find more about engineering. My uncle got me into this but he is too busy to teach me. I am interested in some type of stuff you can tell me to model, help me practice my skills and develop. I already watch a channel called TFI. I can spend probably somethinf like 4 hours a week on Inventor at the moment. Can you give me examples of things you guys model at work and explain how they work (maybe just send me a video which explains the mechanisms 🙂 ). Thank you all in advance.

[Mark.Lancaster · Accepted solution]

@Anonymous

Welcome to the Autodesk User's Community..

Its great to hear that a relative of yours got you interested in learning Autodesk Inventor.    What Inventor version did you install?

One thing that I wanted to point out..  Not saying that others users will not share designs with you but the places that we work for and the products we design are normally not shared with others in order to protect our companies designs and products.

My suggestions..

1.  Start with something small, like hardware

2.  Look at some old mechanical drafting examples

3.  Follow the Inventor guided tutorials.

4.  Go to your school library and look for mechanical drafting/engineering books.

5.  Go to the book store and do the same as item 4.

6.  Use google (its your friend )

[johnsonshiue]

Hi! Welcome to Inventor family! Have you gone through all the Inventor tutorials? Those tutorials are great first step to learn Inventor. Watching videos is fun but you still need to go through the step-by-step tutorials and practice the workflows. Otherwise, you won't be able to understand why and how it works. Please note that Inventor is one of the most popular 3D feature-based parametric solid modeling CAD tools, along with our competitors. Most these tools work very similarly. Learning Inventor enables you to understand how mechanical components are designed. You will be able to use similar tools fairly quickly.

Many thanks!

[Anonymous]

Thanks so much for the help. Okay, I know my uncle's company didn't want to share designs so he could only show me a 5 year old assembly from his old company. Thanks for the information. You have provided some sources of information which will really help me. I will try everything you sent. You are amazing. I will look for the mechanical books you mentioned. Also one more question. Last year I bought a workstation simply for those purposes. The specs are in my profile description. I will not use its full potential yet butroughly speaking can this machine handle a 1000-1500 part assembly? The most I've opened is 284 parts and it worked fantastically. I am really intrigued by Inventor and I have decided this will be my career choice. I have started learning design technology and  we do CAD there but it just isn't like Inventor (google sketchup). Thanks so much man , you rock! 

[Anonymous]

Thanks so much !

[Mark.Lancaster]

@Anonymous

Your machine specs look ok..   Maybe a little low on ram (but that depends on the Inventor version you're using), but you should be okay.

Another thing that I suggest is to model something and then post it here so we can review your workflow and technique.  There's different ways to do things and we all attack problems different ways..

However incorrect or bad habits can set in real quick which will lead to issues down the road..  So post one of your part files and we can review it and suggest different workflow/techniques (if needed).

[PaulMunford]

Autodesk university is a good free resource for online learning:
http://au.autodesk.com/au-online/overview

However, to learn inventor from start to finish, I recommend a class at your local technical college.

If need online training, try Global eTraining or Lydia/LinkedIn.

[Anonymous]

Hey guys. I made a desk. And a simple drawing file (.dwg). Can you guys tell me how to turn it into a .ipn file and also how I can upload the assembly to my phone and show it to my friends. 🙂 Here is the files. 

[Mark.Lancaster]

@Anonymous

Providing only the assembly is not useful.  It only contains the links to your components.

Also if you are using a student version (free license) of Inventor you can't be sharing the information around (to others/like you friends).  Or just be careful of where you are sharing your information.   Its against the rules..

[Anonymous]

Ok, sorry. So how can I share my work... I mean Inventor is so expensive and paying for it isn't an option here.